Carson Branstine: How a model-funded tennis dream reached Wimbledon

She models, she studies law, and now she’s stepping onto tennis’s biggest stage, meet Carson Branstine, the rising tennis star who lost her debut match against Aryna Sabalenka in the first round of Wimbledon.

At just 24 years old, Carson Branstine is already making headlines. The Canadian player, ranked 197th in the world, faced top-seeded Aryna Sabalenka in a losing effort.

But what makes Carson Branstine stand out is her journey. To fund her tennis career, she turned to modelling, not just as a hobby, but as a real job that’s helped pay for travel and training.

She’s signed to two agencies and balances life between tennis matches and fashion shoots. Her social media is filled with images from both worlds, forehands and fashion.

Carson Branstine has said she loves being in front of the camera and sees a strange link between tennis and modelling. In both, she explains, people often treat you like an object, forgetting you’re a person behind the image or performance.

Before turning pro, she had a standout college career at Texas A&M, helping the team win a national title in 2024.

Alongside tennis, Carson Branstine studied Society, Ethics, and Law, and even worked with a family law attorney showing she’s got brains to match her athletic and creative talents.

Earlier, top seed Aryna Sabalenka overcame Canadian qualifier Carson Branstine on a sweltering Court One to get her quest for a first title at Wimbledon 2025 and running with a 6-1 7-5 win.

With the thermometer soaring above 30 degrees Celsius, the Belarusian turned up the heat early to win the opening five games and looked primed for a quick finish.

But Branstine, who juggles her time between the tennis courts and working as a model, earned loud applause when she got on the scoreboard and although Aryna Sabalenka eased to the first set, the second was an intense duel of fierce baseline rallies.